Monday is an auspicious day in the holy month of Shravan, when many devotees of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, head to holy sites across the country.

India's state-run railway authorities said the local train passengers were walking on the tracks when the express train struck them.

"This station is a station in which there were two trains that were already standing because they were supposed to stop there and a super-fast express train was made to pass through there as part of the schedule," Arunendra Kumar, the chairman of the Indian Railway Board, told reporters.

"The passengers got out of the train and got on to the track, and they were moving on that track at the time the train came and got run over," Kumar said.

He said that it wasn't yet the right time "to talk about responsibility" and that "the primary focus is on relief."

But Adhir Ranjan Choudhary, the Indian minister of state for railways, said that relief trains sent to the area had had to stop far away from the scene because of the violent reaction by the people there.

The relief trains are waiting for police to reach the scene before they enter the area, Choudhary told reporters.

Kumar said the driver of the express train was being treated for serious injuries at a hospital after being "brutally beaten" by the angry people at the station.

In his statement, the prime minister appealed for calm "so that the relief and rescue operations can be carried out without any hindrance."

People are dying, it said, because of unmanned train crossings and a lack of barricades, fences and pedestrian bridges. Or the platforms are too narrow and stations lack facilities such as elevators for the disabled.